The present invention relates, in general, to integrated circuits and, more particularly, to adaptive integrated circuitry with heterogeneous and reconfigurable matrices of diverse and adaptive computational units having fixed, application specific computational elements.
The advances made in the design and development of integrated circuits (“ICs”) have generally produced ICs of several different types or categories having different properties and functions, such as the class of universal Turing machines (including microprocessors and digital signal processors (“DSPs”), application specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”), and field programmable gate arrays (“FPGAs”)). Each of these different types of ICs, and their corresponding design methodologies, have distinct advantages and disadvantages.
Microprocessors and DSPs, for example, typically provide a flexible, software programmable solution for the implementation of a wide variety of tasks. As various technology standards evolve, microprocessors and DSPs may be reprogrammed, to varying degrees, to perform various new or altered functions or operations. Various tasks or algorithms, however, must be partitioned and constrained to fit the physical limitations of the processor, such as bus widths and hardware availability. In addition, as processors are designed for the execution of instructions, large areas of the IC are allocated to instruction processing, with the result that the processors are comparatively inefficient in the performance of actual algorithmic operations, with only a few percent of these operations performed during any given clock cycle. Microprocessors and DSPs, moreover, have a comparatively limited activity factor, such as having only approximately five percent of their transistors engaged in algorithmic operations at any given time, with most of the transistors allocated to instruction processing. As a consequence, for the performance of any given algorithmic operation, processors consume significantly more IC (or silicon) area and consume significantly more power compared to other types of ICs, such as ASICs.
While having comparative advantages in power consumption and size, ASICs provide a fixed, rigid or “hard-wired” implementation of transistors (or logic gates) for the performance of a highly specific task or a group of highly specific tasks. ASICs typically perform these tasks quite effectively, with a comparatively high activity factor, such as with twenty-five to thirty percent of the transistors engaged in switching at any given time. Once etched, however, an ASIC is not readily changeable, with any modification being time-consuming and expensive, effectively requiring new masks and new fabrication. As a further result, ASIC design virtually always has a degree of obsolescence, with a design cycle lagging behind the evolving standards for product implementations. For example, an ASIC designed to implement GSM or CDMA standards for mobile communication becomes relatively obsolete with the advent of a new standard, such as 3G.
FPGAs have evolved to provide some design and programming flexibility, allowing a degree of post-fabrication modification. FPGAs typically consist of small, identical sections or “islands” of programmable logic (logic gates) surrounded by many levels of programmable interconnect, and may include memory elements. FPGAs are homogeneous, with the IC comprised of repeating arrays of identical groups of logic gates, memory and programmable interconnect. A particular function may be implemented by configuring (or reconfiguring) the interconnect to connect the various logic gates in particular sequences and arrangements. The most significant advantage of FPGAs are their post-fabrication reconfigurability, allowing a degree of flexibility in the implementation of changing or evolving specifications or standards. The reconfiguring process for an FPGA is comparatively slow, however, and is typically unsuitable for most real-time, immediate applications.
While this post-fabrication flexibility of FPGAs provides a significant advantage, FPGAs have corresponding and inherent disadvantages. Compared to ASICs, FPGAs are very expensive and very inefficient for implementation of particular functions, and are often subject to a “combinatorial explosion” problem. More particularly, for FPGA implementation, an algorithmic operation comparatively may require orders of magnitude more IC area, time and power, particularly when the particular algorithmic operation is a poor fit to the pre-existing, homogeneous islands of logic gates of the FPGA material. In addition, the programmable interconnect, which should be sufficiently rich and available to provide reconfiguration flexibility, has a correspondingly high capacitance, resulting in comparatively slow operation and high power consumption. For example, compared to an ASIC, an FPGA implementation of a relatively simple function, such as a multiplier, consumes significant IC area and vast amounts of power, while providing significantly poorer performance by several orders of magnitude. In addition, there is a chaotic element to FPGA routing, rendering FPGAs subject to unpredictable routing delays and wasted logic resources, typically with approximately one-half or more of the theoretically available gates remaining unusable due to limitations in routing resources and routing algorithms.
Various prior art attempts to meld or combine these various processor, ASIC and FPGA architectures have had utility for certain limited applications, but have not proven to be successful or useful for low power, high efficiency, and real-time applications. Typically, these prior art attempts have simply provided, on a single chip, an area of known FPGA material (consisting of a repeating array of identical logic gates with interconnect) adjacent to either a processor or an ASIC, with limited interoperability, as an aid to either processor or ASIC functionality. For example, Trimberger U.S. Pat. No. 5,737,631, entitled “Reprogrammable Instruction Set Accelerator”, issued Apr. 7, 1998, is designed to provide instruction acceleration for a general purpose processor, and merely discloses a host CPU made up of such a basic microprocessor combined in parallel with known FPGA material (with an FPGA configuration store, which together form the reprogrammable instruction set accelerator). This reprogrammable instruction set accelerator, while allowing for some post-fabrication reconfiguration flexibility and processor acceleration, is nonetheless subject to the various disadvantages of traditional processors and traditional FPGA material, such as high power consumption and high capacitance, with comparatively low speed, low efficiency and low activity factors.
Tavana et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,094,065, entitled “Integrated Circuit with Field Programmable and Application Specific Logic Areas”, issued Jul. 25, 2000, is designed to allow a degree of post-fabrication modification of an ASIC, such as for correction of design or other layout flaws, and discloses use of a field programmable gate array in a parallel combination with a mask-defined application specific logic area (i.e., ASIC material). Once again, known FPGA material, consisting of a repeating array of identical logic gates within a rich programmable interconnect, is merely placed adjacent to ASIC material within the same silicon chip. While potentially providing post-fabrication means for “bug fixes” and other error correction, the prior art IC is nonetheless subject to the various disadvantages of traditional ASICs and traditional FPGA material, such as highly limited reprogrammability of an ASIC, combined with high power consumption, comparatively low speed, low efficiency and low activity factors of FPGAs.
As a consequence, it would be desirable to have a new form or type of integrated circuitry which effectively and efficiently combines and maximizes the various advantages of processors, ASICs and FPGAs, while minimizing potential disadvantages.
In addition, due to the disadvantages of many conventional hardware components, such as processors, ASICs and FPGAs, as described above, hardware components used to implement many functions and/or algorithms in a traditional hardware-based system are permanently dedicated to such functions and/or algorithms. In other words, when a particular function and/or algorithm is not utilized, the associated hardware components remain idle. It would be beneficial and more efficient if the idle hardware components can be used to carry out other functions and/or algorithms within the system.
For example, in a traditional cellular phone, during power-up, a large portion of the circuitry within the cellular phone sits idle waiting for the receiver circuitry to perform system acquisition. The amount of acquisition time is directly proportional to the amount of hardware dedicated to the system acquisition task. Traditionally, the dedicated hardware is optimized based on cost trade-off and system acquisition time and is often much closer sized to the needs of the receiver during traffic mode than during system acquisition. As a result, when acquiring a signal in an unknown environment, e.g., the operating channel is different from the last channel used at power-down, the receiver may spend a large amount of time to acquire the new channel. The time necessary to acquire a signal in an unknown environment may range from seconds to minutes. However, since system acquisition is only performed at power-up, long acquisition times in cases where a new system is encountered is considered an acceptable trade-off. Nevertheless, shorter system acquisition times would still be desirable. Hence, it would be desirable to have a new form or type of integrated circuitry which allows hardware resources to be managed or allocated more efficiently so as to enhance the performance of a system.
Moreover, since hardware components in a traditional hardware-based system are permanently dedicated to their associated functions and/or algorithms, adding and implementing new functions and/or algorithms would require adding hardware components. Due to physical limitations, adding hardware components to a system may not be possible. Consequently, it would also be desirable to have a new form or type of integrated circuitry which allows additional functions and/or algorithms to be added and implemented in a system without incurring significant hardware costs.